


Might Just Be

by Bakageta



Category: Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Fluff, Gen, Nausea, Other, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-22
Updated: 2019-08-22
Packaged: 2020-09-24 00:01:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20349004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bakageta/pseuds/Bakageta
Summary: >>the one where color appears on your body wherever your soulmate first touches youLike most people, Eddie never seriously expected to find his Match, but there was always that quiet hope. He’d been dragged to touch parties while in college and there was always the immediate thrill-disappointment that followed shaking a person's hand, but after New York and meeting Anne he’d accepted that it (probably) wouldn’t happen.It is exceedingly rare for a Klyntar symbiote to find their Match, their Other. The universe is a wide place, and unforgiving. Most only know rumors of what fate lies for them once they find their Other, and like most things the worst rumors spread furthest.





	Might Just Be

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to the lovely [sajastar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sajastar/pseuds/sajastar) for betaing, this fic is much improved because of them!

On every planet there are ways for Matched souls to find each other. First words, last words, names, symbols; colors that bloom in proximity, shared scars, transferred writing; and, more strangely, matched wings, exchanges of perspective, psychic communication. There are almost as many ways to find a soul’s Match as there are sentient species, and when a species gains spaceflight, options open even further for Matches.

For example, on Earth, a human’s Match is revealed at first touch. Within minutes color blooms at the site of direct skin contact.

In contrast, Klyntar, which have been spacefaring for centuries and who’s lifespans are even longer, have no standard method of finding their Matched Others. Instead they are a match to their host in method as well as soul, whether it be words, symbols, or shared dreams.

…...

After his escape from the LIFE Foundation, Eddie doesn’t actually feel too bad. Aside from the fever, and the hunger, and the nausea. And the weird humming not quite a headache in the back of his head. And the strange tight feeling still wrapping around his neck.

Okay, so maybe he feels pretty bad, but he’s nowhere near as banged up as he thought he’d be after a mad dash through Drake’s labs, and Drake’s guards, and a tree, then up a tree, and down a tree, and across the city to his shithole apartment. 

But, maybe if he can just get some food in himself, everything will be alright, so he opens up his freezer and just goes. Most of the stuff in there is old and freezer burnt and, even though he’s not expecting much, tastes pale and bland. Except for the tater tots. They taste like if comfort and trust were something you could eat and that’s just when they’re frozen. Which is so fucking weird, but he’s still so hungry that he can hardly think so he doesn’t.

He takes a moment to pull some water down his throat like he’s dying and, with the tots and the water, he feels the tense feeling around his neck ease up just the tiniest bit. It doesn’t help the hunger though and only makes the nausea worse.

After the freezer’s empty, Eddie moves on to the trashcan because the only thing in the fridge is beer and just the thought makes him gag. There’s the remains of a rotisserie chicken and Eddie brings it to his mouth, ripping meat and connective tissue off of the carcass without bothering to use his hands.

For a moment something in Eddie uncurls, because even if it’s ** _dead_ ** and ** _burnt_ ** , it’s flesh, it’s protein, and the texture feels so ** _right_ ** in their mouth. It would be better if it were fresh, they think. Then Eddie’s nausea rises and destroys the moment.

Vomiting into the toilet doesn’t really help, mainly because he doesn’t get much up other than the chicken. He dry heaves and it’s awful because his stomach is still full of all the shit from his freezer, but his esophagus is clamped down so it feels like he’s got a rock shifting in his gut. His neck has tightened up again and he thinks that maybe Maria had hurt him worse than he thought when she bore him down to the ground, throttling him.

So Eddie goes to his bathroom mirror and then he sees the mark.

It starts at the base of his neck and flows up either side along his jugulars and tendons, bands and coils of pigment deeper and more intense than anything Eddie’s ever seen on a human body. He’d say it’s bruise colored and he’s not entirely wrong, but he’s also not right. It’s the deepest purple of the night sky on the perfect cusp of twilight, and it’s the darkest blue of the unknowable depths of the pacific, and it’s the shimmering black of the space between galaxies.

The color is solid and pure and more than skin deep. Eddie thinks that if someone were to cut into his throat they would be able to follow the trail of pigment as it twines into and under and around the structures of his neck. They shiver at the thought and know it’s true.

It can’t be a touch-mark.

It’s too deep and strange, ignoring the fact that Eddie’s hands had brushed against Maria’s tens of dozens of times and ignoring that the mark’s shaped more like a pile of snakes than someone’s hands. The color’s not quite right, more strong and solid than it is vivid and bright, and what would it say about Eddie that the color of his Match is so deep and dark and threatening? If it were a touch-mark, that is.

Not that it was one, of course.

Idly he scratches at it, noting that there’s no change in texture to his skin just like a real touch-mark.

Then, just as his scratching starts crossing the border into clawing, Eddie’s eyes flash large and shimmer white and words shout into his skull.

** _EDDIE. STOP._ **

Eddie does, but only because he’s suddenly too busy launching himself backwards into his tub and unconsciousness to claw at the mark.

……

Eddie doesn’t get a chance to think about the strange not touch-mark for a long time, too busy going on the wildest ride of his life with the strangest, most wonderful being he’s ever met.

……

Eddie also doesn’t get much of a chance to realize why it’s so quiet in his head after the MRI peels Venom out of him. His heart is shivering like a record scratch as their constant thrumming companionship is cut off at its source, noticeable only in its absence.

He staggers away from Anne and Dan, lost in confusion and emptiness. When he’d found out Venom was killing him in a way that Dan couldn’t fix he almost hadn’t believed the doctor despite all the evidence, despite the fever, despite how his heart felt like it was going to rocket out of his chest and onto the floor. He’d known with bone deep certainty that Venom wouldn’t have done that, not on purpose, not unless there were no other options. 

What Eddie keeps circling around, though, is why he’s so sure. Up until now, he might have feared for the lives of himself and those around him, but Eddie has never once believed that Venom would purposefully harm him. The doubt and betrayal had only crept in after the MRI had reamed them apart, leaving Eddie weak and hollow and scared and, worst of all, silent.

He’s been betrayed, by who Eddie’s not entirely sure. Venom who leaned too heavily on him in their desperation or Anne and Dan who split them apart and seemingly ruined the last good thing in his life.

What exactly that last good thing was he’s not sure of, but he gets plenty of time to think on it while in Drake’s clutches.

…...

Like most people, Eddie never seriously expected to find his Match, but there was always that quiet hope. He’d been dragged to touch parties while in college and there was always the immediate thrill-disappointment that followed shaking a person's hand, but after New York and meeting Anne he’d accepted that it (probably) wouldn’t happen.

After he ruined Anne’s career and his life, Eddie gave up entirely.

…...

After they leave Anne behind, Eddie presses out of Venom while they’re still in the woods because after all his time alone he has questions. So, so many questions. Like why precisely did they decide to kiss him and why did they eat his heart and, what, for fuck’s sake, is going on between the two of them? 

“What changed your mind?” Is the question he settles on, after Venom walks Eddie’s body to an almost literal point of no return. It’s an important question, Eddie thinks. At some point Venom had abandoned Riot’s plan, but Eddie doesn’t know when or why. 

** _You did, Eddie._ ** Venom says as they press out over and around him, bulking over him and finally shooting streaks and veins of white through their mass. 

The white is important just like the purple/blue/black on his neck is important, Eddie feels, but in the moment he doesn’t know why.

**“You are my Other,”** they say with something in between joy and mourning.

The words carry more meaning than Eddie would have ever thought possible and the presence of that meaning braces and bolsters both of them through the fight and through separation and even through death.

……

It is exceedingly rare for a Klyntar symbiote to find their Match, their Other. The universe is a wide place, and unforgiving. Most only know rumors of what fate lies for them once they find their Other, and like most things the worst rumors spread furthest.

Some believe that their Other will tempt them away from their purpose. They’ll flee galaxies the moment a possible Match appears, fearful of their will being twisted.

And others believe that only weakness lies in their Match. To find one’s Other is to become entrapped in flesh and forced to stagnate.

All believe that a symbiote will never be their Other’s Match, only their tool or maybe a parasite.

……

** _Goodbye, Eddie._ ** Venom says.

And Eddie denies it with every thread of himself woven into their shared being.

“Venom! No!” Eddie clings desperately to every piece of Venom that is a part of him with every piece of himself that is also a part of them.

And then they both hit the water.

……

Eddie wakes on the beach when Anne rolls him onto his side into the recovery position.

“Not s’posed to do that.” He mumbles. “What if I had a back injury?”

“Then Venom would have done a shitty job of keeping his promise.” Anne says, and Eddie looks up to her, her eyes shining and wet and her face worried and blotchy with emotion. “He said he would fix you. Did--did he? Are… Is he okay?”

“Yeah… I think so.” Eddie can barely feel them, pale and curled up behind the brand new sternum they made only hours ago.

“Is that him?” Anne asks as Eddie shifts so his head is on her lap for no reason other than that it’s a more comfortable position and he trusts her. He’ll get up soon but right now he just wants to breathe.

When he settles, Eddie hums a question.

“On your neck, I didn’t ask before, but is that him?”

“No, ‘m pretty sure he’s in my chest right now.” Eddie glances to where Anne’s hand is resting on his shoulder, two points of light dusty blue marking the skin on her wrist above her pulse point and more blue peeking around the back of it. “That’s… I think that’s our... mark.”

Anne breathes a soft, quiet laugh. “It’s a pretty one then; you fit each other.”

A part of Eddie, which he belatedly realizes is Venom, huffs because of course they fit and pretty is only the least of words to describe it, but most of him (and most of them) warms at the thought. The idea that they fit so well that other people can see it. The idea that the path they took into Eddie is pretty.

“We do.” Eddie says.

……

Eventually Dan finds them and helps them all into Anne’s SUV. Eddie and Venom sit in the back again, curled up and leaning against the door just like they had less than twenty four hours ago. They stay inside of his body just like last time but unlike last time they’re quiet and still in his chest.

Eddie is quiet as well, one hand pressed to his sternum, which he has yet to even look at, the other hand loosely gripping the seatbelt. He can feel them if he focuses, resting and tentative, a slight pressure between his lungs and against his heart on each breath he takes. It wasn’t something Eddie’d felt from them before and he wonders what’s changed if anything. Probably, it’s just that they’re both exhausted.

Their presence is back in his mind, too, no longer just Eddie bouncing around his too empty head. If he pays attention he can hear it weaving into the background of his thoughts all _ here-here-here _ and _ mine-mine-mine _.

The drive through the city is lengthened by traffic that Eddie carefully doesn’t think about the cause of. He spends the drive watching Dan’s hands on the wheel, both the palm and fingers of his left and the tips of his right index and long fingers coloured a warm orange, and thinks of questions that he probably won’t ever ask. 

Eventually he falls asleep despite the stop and go of the SUV.

……

They haven’t been together long, but with Venom Eddie is more at ease than he’s ever been. He’s comfortable in a way he’s never been. Secure in the knowledge that whatever may happen, Venom will be there with him and nothing could ever ruin him so long as they are them.

It’s a private, unacknowledged sort of trust and Eddie understands now why Matched pairs tend not to talk about it. 

……

The next day, Venom stirs for the first time since the fight while Eddie’s in the shower.

They don’t do much, just flutter lightly against his heart and lungs like the world’s tiniest hiccup, but Eddie’s attention is immediately drawn to them. He feels them in the back of his head, all tentative hope, like they can’t believe their luck. They’re still within him and he hasn’t gotten rid of them while they were weak and useless and couldn’t defend the both of them and they’re both themselves as well as each other and he’s noticed them, hasn’t he?

“Yeah.” Eddie says and continues going through the motions of showering.

Another flutter inside his chest, and they shift a little, pressing up against Eddie’s mind hesitantly and then hopefully as they find none of the rejection and betrayal they had feared.

“You okay?”

They are.

“Good. I’m glad.” It’s something of an understatement, but it’s true, and Eddie presses that truth into them.

They bask in it and Eddie enjoys the reflection of their happiness as he finishes up, heading to the guest room. Anne and Dan had given him free run of it last night, permission to stay as long as he needed after they’d tried to drop him off at his apartment only to find it cordoned off with police tape. They hadn’t even woken him up, just took one look and decided to take him to Anne’s place. It’s strange to be here, but not uncomfortable, not with the colors on Anne and Dan’s hands and the deep marks that run up his neck.

“Can I see you?” Eddie asks, without expectation, as he settles on the bed still wrapped in a towel.

Hesitation, until Eddie cups his hands over the wide scar that runs up his chest, then they press up and out.

They’re so small, it’s the first thing Eddie notices. Barely a handful, though Eddie can sense somehow that there’s more of them anchored inside his chest. After that Eddie notices that Venom’s color has sort of changed. Before, when they had pressed out of his body, they had been a solid inky black that gleamed in the electric lights of San Francisco’s night. Now Venom’s mass is shot through with white, the same as when the symbiote enveloped Eddie’s body entirely, like obsidian veined with quartz.

“I’ve got some questions.”

They can’t answer right now, as small and tired as they are words are beyond them. The only reason Eddie has as good of a sense of them as he does right now is because, they realize, he was made for them. They can’t help the shiver of excitement and anxiety that runs through them.

“S’okay, I can wait.” Eddie focuses on feelings of care and concern and patience.

It takes barely a moment for Venom to be reassured and retreat back into Eddie’s chest. Their presence against his lungs is more noticable again now that their mass is entirely inside, and Eddie settles fully into the guest bed. He’s got a lot of shit to figure out, the rest of his life to sort out, find out where he stands with the network, but it can wait.

He figures a nap is the least of what they deserve.

……

Time passes, and they both recover.

Eddie gets his feet back under himself. After a week at Anne and Dan’s his apartment is no longer a literal crime scene and with a little effort Eddie gets it cleaned up enough to walk barefoot in. There’s questions from the authorities of course: do you have any enemies, why do you think you were attacked, who do you think attacked you… 

He pins the blame solely on Drake. Obviously whatever experiments he was running weren’t yielding results (I mean have you seen those pictures?), there was the fallout from the failure of the first rocket, and the scrutiny left over from Eddie’s own accusations and the court case? He was obviously just the easiest target to go after! It was too much pressure, a lesser man would have snapped months ago, and, gosh, Eddie’s just glad Drake crashed into the Bay instead of setting the Marin Headlands on fire.

Somehow, it works.

The remains of the LIFE Foundation have been presented a scapegoat and they jump on it, tearing Drake apart posthumously. All the attention is drawn away from Eddie Brock personally, the only interview requests he gets are in relation to the seemingly small part he played in Drake’s downfall. 

He knows better than to question it. Something or someone had suppressed the video of them running from Drake’s goons through the city, and of them fighting the SWAT Team that Eddie strongly suspected wasn’t actually a SWAT Team, and of the shit that went down on the rocket platform. Whoever had done that thorough coverup hung over Eddie’s head like a fucking sword, just as ready to cut his head off as to defend them.

But it’s not something he can affect in any meaningful way and he can’t afford to rush into something and ruin himself again, so he does his level best to put the thought out of his mind and move on with his life.

Then Eddie starts getting job offers: mostly freelance, a few actual permanent positions.

The whole time Venom recovers, radiating curiosity and contentment.

……

Eddie talks to Venom always, even when they’re resting, which is most of the time.

He narrates his day. About what he's doing around the apartment and why. His thoughts on whatever fluff piece he's writing.

Venom is usually in some kind of torpor, recovering, but sometimes Eddie feels their attention. When this happens, he leans into their presence, content in a way he’d never hoped to be.

……

**“Eddie.”** Venom rumbles deeply against Eddie’s vocal chords, causing an involuntary hum as he exhales.

“Venom, hey, you’re back.” Eddie leans away from his laptop and the article he’s writing about Monterey Bay Aquarium’s conservation efforts and settles into his secondhand couch.

**“Never left,”** they grumble, solid inky black spilling out of his neck and collar bone and winding their way down and through and around his right arm. Everything from Eddie’s shoulder down goes briefly distant as Venom takes control, lifting his arm away from his thigh and onto the top of the head they’ve rested in his lap. They wriggle Eddie’s fingers briefly against their smooth surface before ceding control.

“I know,” Eddie continues the motion Venom started with his fingers with barely a stutter, alternating between the tips of his fingers and the chewed stubs of his nails, “I felt you. Heard your thoughts--and the mark’s not faded.”

**“Faded?”**

“Yeah, like if you--if you died or if you rejected the Match.” It makes Eddie anxious to even think about.

They’re incredulous. As much as they’d dreaded the thought of being caught and bound by their Other, now that it has happened they couldn’t imagine being without Eddie. Perhaps this is what the stories meant by being trapped and weakened. They can’t imagine traveling the void with Eddie. The technology on Earth isn’t quite there and more importantly everything Eddie cares about is here. They find that they want to learn why Eddie cares, why he was willing to die to protect this ugly little dirtball with its beautiful lights.

Eddie hums agreeably as he feels the shape of Venom’s thoughts.

**“What idiot would reject this?”** They leave out that they probably would have before they knew.

“Doesn’t happen often; I’ve only heard old stories. People on opposite sides of a war, people who can’t accept that kind of connection, people who’re scared.” Eddie starts making tiny circles on the top of Venom’s head.

“Don’t have to worry about that though. You’re mine. I’m yours. Just like you said.”

They can't really be his, Eddie feels them think, the buoy had been wishful thinking, they’d never even allowed themselves to hope for that much. 

Eddie ignores that thought-- they probably didn’t mean for him to hear it--and instead focuses on the sensation of Venom half buried in his arm. It’s strange to feel the muscles of his forearm shift through and part around the bits of Venom darkening the inside of his arm. He focuses on the quiet back and forth pull in his mind, on their soft, shifting presence in his body. Venom follows his attention and they realize what Eddie realized after the rocket on the beach.

** _I am yours,_ ** Venom breathes into the the back of Eddie’s mind. Your Other they think quietly on the edges of Eddie’s self.

“Yeah, you are.” Eddie switches to petting the apex of Venom’s head with short, slow strokes. “You’re my Match. You said I’m your Other before the fight; it’s what this is all about right?” A quick gesture with his free hand towards the touch-mark on his neck. “And the white that was on you, that’s my mark on you?”

**“It is.”**

“Why’d you hide it? On the buoy?”

**“I was... scared. Marks are meant to be hidden, not flaunted.” **They squint their eyes closed, thinking of how they’d coated their combined body in the mass that had changed color as they flowed into Eddie. How they had bared the marks of their bond to anyone who knew enough to matter. Riot’s offer to allow them back on to the rocket had been a token courtesy at best. Both of them had known the offer would be rejected.

**“You are my Other, yes, but Eddie,”** Venom pauses, **“that did not ** ** _have_ ** ** to mean I am yours.”**

For a few moments they sit in silence together, tense and concerned and wondering.

“It kind of does have to mean that, though.” Eddie says eventually. “Two people touch and mark each other. They can keep it or reject it, but it’s always mutual. Always.”

They’re sort of hopefully confused now, and wordlessly project a sense of ‘go on’.

“Well… it makes sense. Wouldn’t be a Matched pair if it was one sided, right? Marks fade if one person doesn’t want it. And I’m guessing you mean your Other as in your Other Half?”

Embarrassed confirmation, while Eddie strokes between their closed eyes.

**“I never hoped for that. We were always told our Others would trap us. That they would make us become weak and stagnant.”** Venom leans into Eddie’s hand.

“S’not true.”

**“No, it is not.”** Venom agrees, shifting the shape of their head into a hand and taking care as they interlock their clawed fingers with Eddie’s own. ** _You are mine, and I am yours, and we are ours._ **

_ Of course_, Eddie thinks and they both settle into each other, drifting together, each content to listen to the rhythm of the other’s thoughts.

**Author's Note:**

> I saw the prompt and my brain immediately pointed out that the first place Eddie and Venom touch is Eddie's neck when they're throttling him :D
> 
> Also, I'm on [tumblr](https://bakageta.tumblr.com/)! Hit me up!


End file.
